The exercise amount measuring device is worn on a living body to detect any movements of the living body for generating exercise signals.
FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of the exercise signal generator used in a conventional exercise amount measuring device.
The exercise signal generator comprises a cantilever-like spring whip “b” having a magnet M attached to its intermediate portion and a weight “a” attached to its free end, and a sensor S such as a Hall Effect sensor, magnetic resistance element or lead switch arranged in the horizontal or vertical direction in which the magnet M moves, the sensor S being connected to an associated counter circuit C.
When one wears the exercise signal generator, the spring whip “b” bends horizontally or vertically, allowing the magnet M to come close to and leave apart from the magnetic sensor S.
The number of movements in a two-dimensional space can be determined in terms of how many times the magnet M has come to close to the magnetic sensor S while moving horizontally or vertically.
If the weight “a” is too light, any movements cannot be detected. If the spring whip “b” is too short, any movements cannot be detected, either. The weight, therefore, needs to be heavy enough to detect any movements of the living body, and likewise, the spring whip “b” needs to be long enough.
Disadvantageously this requirement enlarges the space allotted for mounting the exercise signal generator.
Also, it is required that the magnet M is so positioned that it may traverse the center of the magnetic sensor S.
To assure that the magnetic sensor S works well the parts need to be assembled with good precision.
Because of the necessity of using such extra parts the cost for manufacturing exercise signal generators is relatively high.
Incidentally inclination detectors for use in cameras are mass-produced at reduced cost, and are commercially available.
The inclination detector is responsive to the normal position, left-down, upright position, right-down, upright position, upward leaning position and downward leaning position of the camera for effecting the exposure control in respect of which direction the camera is inclined and for effecting an appropriate control on the lens drive mechanism, which is sensitive to the downward or upward leaning posture of the camera.
The inclination detector has a spherical contact body or contact ball rolling freely in its casing, and contact electrodes arranged in vertical and horizontal directions in the casing.
When the casing is inclined, the contact ball rolls in the direction in which the casing is inclined to touch a selected contact electrode, which is arranged in the inclining direction. An electric current is made to flow through the so closed switch. Thus, the direction in which the casing is inclined can be determined.
The inclination detector is responsive not only to inclinations but also to shaking movements for making its switches selectively turn on or off.
Therefore, such a simple ball-and-contact structure can be used to detect two-dimensional movements.
The inclination detector is light and small, not requiring a large space for mounting the same.
One object of the present invention is to provide an exercise amount measuring device for detecting two-dimensional movements, using an inclination detector commercially available as an exercise signal generator, thus making it easy to assemble parts into exercise amount measuring devices, which are compact and less expensive.